that's right folks ..We The People r paying 4 THIS ! ...hows that make u feel America! what's that TELL u about Our Gov. ass pipes We The People r the enemy
Accused Fort Hood Shooter Paid $278,000 While Awaiting Trial
Injured soldier outraged suspected shooter receives salary while his family financially struggles in recovery
By Scott Friedman
| Tuesday, May 21, 2013 | Updated 8:14 AM CDT http://www.nbcdfw.com/investigations/Accused-Fort-Hood-Shooter-Paid-278000-While-Awaiting-Trial-208230691.html
Scott Friedman, NBC 5 Investigates
The
Department of Defense confirms to NBC 5 Investigates that accused Fort
Hood shooter Major Nidal Hasan has been paid more than $278,000 since
the Nov. 5, 2009 shooting that left 13 dead 32 injured.
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The Department of Defense confirms to NBC 5 Investigates
that accused Fort Hood shooter Major Nidal Hasan has now been paid more
than $278,000 since the Nov. 5, 2009 shooting that left 13 dead 32
injured. The Army said under the Military Code of Justice, Hasan’s
salary cannot be suspended unless he is proven guilty.
If Hasan had been a civilian defense department employee, NBC 5 Investigates has learned, the Army could have suspended his pay after just seven days.
Personnel rules for most civilian
government workers allow for "indefinite suspensions" in cases "when the
agency has reasonable cause to believe that the employee has committed a
crime for which a sentence of imprisonment may be imposed."
Meanwhile, more than three years
later soldiers wounded in the mass shooting are fighting to receive the
same pay and medical benefits given to those wounded in combat.
Retired Army Spc. Logan Burnett, a
reservist who, in 2009, was soon to be deployed to Iraq, was shot three
times when a gunman opened fire inside the Army Deployment Center.
“I honestly thought I was going to
die in that building,” said Burnett. “Just blood everywhere and then the
thought of -- that's my blood everywhere.”
Burnett nearly died. He's had more
than a dozen surgeries since the shooting, and says post-traumatic
stress still keeps him up at night.
Burnett is now fighting a new battle; only this one is against the U.S. Army.
The Army has not classified the
wounds of the Ft. Hood victims as “combat related” and declines to label
the shooting a “terrorist attack”,
The “combat related” designation is
an important one, for without it Burnett and other shooting victims are
not given combat-related pay, they are not eligible for Purple Heart
retirement or medical benefits given to other soldiers wounded either at
war or during the Sept. 11, 2001 attack on the Pentagon.
As a result, Burnett, his wife
Torey, and the families of other Fort Hood victims miss out on thousands
of dollars of potential benefits and pay every year.
To Burnett the shooting felt like combat.
“You take three rounds and lose five
good friends and watch seven other people get killed in front of you.
Do you have another term that we can classify that as?” asked Burnett.
The Army has categorized the shooting as a case of “workplace violence.”
“Sickens me. Absolutely sickens me. Workplace violence? I don't even know if I have the words to say,” said Burnett.
"They don't need to be treated like
this. They don't need to sit and fight every day for this benefit or
that,” said Torey Burnett.
As that fight continues, Burnett was stunned to see a letter detailing the more $278,000 Hasan has been paid since his arrest. NBC 5 Investigates received the letter from the Department of Defense in response to a request under the Freedom of Information Act.
"There have been times when my wife
and I cannot afford groceries. We cannot afford gas in our car,” Burnett
said. “Literally, times where we ate Ramen noodles for weeks on end.
This [that Hasan is still earning a paycheck] makes me sick to my
stomach,” said Burnett.
Burnett isn’t alone in his outrage.
“We're giving the defendant in this
case every benefit of the doubt. But yet we're not giving the benefits
to the victims,” said Rep. Thomas Rooney (R) Florida
Rooney, a former prosecutor at Fort
Hood, recently signed a bi-partisan letter urging defense secretary
Chuck Hagel to "...reclassify the victims' deaths and injuries as
'combat related'..."
The letter said the current
situation has "...resulted in an embarrassing lack of care and treatment
for the victims and their families."
“What happened here is not a case of
workplace violence. What happened here was an attack on our military by
a terrorist element specifically targeting our military, which just so
happened to be in the United States of America,” said Rooney.
Reports from the Federal Bureau of
Investigation showed Hasan was communicating with a member of Al Qaida
prior to the shooting. Additionally, the government’s National
Counterterrorism Center lists the shooting at Fort Hood as a “high
fatality terrorist attack.”
Rooney said he's also willing to
consider whether Congress should change the rules, so the Army could
suspend the pay of soldiers arrested for crimes against fellow soldiers.
NBC 5 Investigates
wanted to ask Pentagon officials about Hasan's pay and the decision to
classify the shooting as workplace violence, but the Army turned down
requests for an interview. However, the Army's Chief of Media Relations
told NBC 5 Investigates: "The Department of
Defense is committed to the integrity of the ongoing court martial
proceedings of Major Nidal Hasan and for that reason will not further
characterize, at this time, the incident that occurred at Fort Hood on
Nov. 5, 2009.”
Burnett, who recently retired from
the Army and moved to Arkansas to live with family and save some money,
has joined dozens of other Fort Hood victims in a lawsuit against the
Army demanding the benefits they believe they've been unfairly denied.
“I refuse to continue letting Nidal
Hasan win. And I leave the "Major" part out, because even though,
unfortunately, he's still being paid better than I am, he doesn't
deserve that rank,” said Burnett.
A lawyer who once represented Hasan
previously claimed his client couldn’t find a bank that would deposit
his Army paychecks, but a spokesman at Fort Hood told NBC 5 Investigates that that issue has since been resolved; meaning Hasan or his family can access the money.
The Army could get some money back
from Hasan by demanding re-payment for the cost of treating the wounds
he sustained when a police officer shot him during the incident.
However, military officials would not tell NBC 5 Investigates if they plan to do that.
With the trial expected to begin this summer, Hasan’s lawyer declined to comment on this story.
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